Gaslight Square, St. Louis
Encyclopedia
Gaslight Square in Saint Louis, Missouri flourished from the early nineteen fifties into the mid-sixties. This entertainment district was located in an area close to the intersection of Olive and Boyle Streets, near what is now known as the Central West End neighborhood.
street lamps and ornate Victorian style architecture, reflective of the riverboat times around the turn of the century. Gaslight Square quickly became a thriving entertainment district that can be compared to the Delmar Loop
area of St. Louis today. The Square occupies the area surrounding Olive and Boyle Streets in the Central West End. The district was popular for music, poetry, great food, and dancing. It was the home to many clubs and restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Brothers Dick and Paul Mutrux are considered by many to be the pioneers of Gaslight square, being proprietors of one of the first saloons in the area, the Gaslight. Another saloon, the Golden Eagle, soon opened, and proprietor Jay Landesman
relocated his extremely popular cabaret theatre, the Crystal Palace, to the area as well. Early business owners in Gaslight Square raided recently demolished property in downtown St. Louis to salvage unique items such as church pew
s, chandeliers, recycled stained glass
, and marble bathtubs. These resourceful decorations gave Gaslight Square a youthful, eclectic feel that attracted young beatniks and wealthy customers alike. At its height, Gaslight Square was home to approximately fifty businesses, including taverns, cabarets, restaurants, sidewalk cafe
s, and antique shop
s. These businesses provided an array of unique entertainment that combined elements of the past and present. The Opera House had a façade
covered in croquet balls and was a venue for Dixieland
jazz. The Roaring Twenties was a speakeasy
themed bar that included a stage show, mock raids, and staged gangster fights. The Natchez Queen was decorated to resemble a riverboat with live ragtime
music inside. By 1962, property values
had tripled in Gaslight Square.
The district was greatly affected by dramatic change in culture
and music of the late 1950s and 60s when the bohemian
and hippie
generation began questioning traditional majority values in art, literature, and political self expression. the district attracted many poets and writer
s, such as Jack Kerouac
and Alan Ginsberg who would stop in St. Louis to experience Gaslight Square.
Many entertainers such as The Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce
, Miles Davis
, Barbra Streisand
, Jackie Mason
, Mike Nichols
and Elaine May
, Woody Allen
, Jerry Stiller
, Dick Gregory
and Jack E. Leonard
gained exposure at the start of their careers in the clubs of Gaslight Square.
Traditional jazz clubs in Gaslight Square included Peacock Alley
, Opera House, Bustles and Bows, and Tiger's Den. Modern jazz clubs included The Dark Side, The Other Side, and Jogie's Hip Intertainment. Rosalie Lovett's Left Bank featured barrelhouse bluesman James Crutchfield
.
By the late 1960s Gaslight Square had lost its luster, falling victim to the rapid growth of suburbs and urban decay
.
For the 20–30 years the district was almost completely vacant. With many empty lots and the remaining buildings dilapidating and empty.
In 2005, many properties within Gaslight Square were bought by the development company RJK Inc. 150 units are planned, mostly condominiums. The new residential properties will sell in the 280k-600k price-range. As of 2008, the vacant lots and condemned buildings are no more. The district is a mixed density residential community with new single family, row homes, small apartments, and condos.
, Jay Landesman
, Bob Kuban
, and many others.
Gaslight Square The Legend Lives On (Bruce Marren/2005) looks at the influence it had on the city, uncovers relics, and what has happened to it today. Includes interviews with Phyllis Diller
, Billy Peek
, Jonnie King, and many others.
History
Gaslight Square was the name given to the entertainment district built in the mid-1950s. The district was known for its gas lightingGas lighting
Gas lighting is production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, including hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, or natural gas. Before electricity became sufficiently widespread and economical to allow for general public use, gas was the most...
street lamps and ornate Victorian style architecture, reflective of the riverboat times around the turn of the century. Gaslight Square quickly became a thriving entertainment district that can be compared to the Delmar Loop
Delmar Loop
The Delmar Loop is an entertainment, cultural and restaurant district in University City, Missouri and the ajoining western edge of St. Louis, Missouri. Most of its attractions are located in the streetcar suburb of University City, but the area is expanding eastward into the Skinker-Debaliviere...
area of St. Louis today. The Square occupies the area surrounding Olive and Boyle Streets in the Central West End. The district was popular for music, poetry, great food, and dancing. It was the home to many clubs and restaurants, and entertainment venues.
Brothers Dick and Paul Mutrux are considered by many to be the pioneers of Gaslight square, being proprietors of one of the first saloons in the area, the Gaslight. Another saloon, the Golden Eagle, soon opened, and proprietor Jay Landesman
Jay Landesman
Irving Ned Landesman was an American publisher, nightclub proprietor and writer long resident in London.-With the Beats:...
relocated his extremely popular cabaret theatre, the Crystal Palace, to the area as well. Early business owners in Gaslight Square raided recently demolished property in downtown St. Louis to salvage unique items such as church pew
Pew
A pew is a long bench seat or enclosed box used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, or sometimes in a courtroom.-Overview:Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the Protestant Reformation...
s, chandeliers, recycled stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
, and marble bathtubs. These resourceful decorations gave Gaslight Square a youthful, eclectic feel that attracted young beatniks and wealthy customers alike. At its height, Gaslight Square was home to approximately fifty businesses, including taverns, cabarets, restaurants, sidewalk cafe
Sidewalk cafe
A sidewalk cafe is an outdoor part of a coffeehouse or cafe. This is an area where customers go to relax, dine, and socialize...
s, and antique shop
Antique shop
An antique shop is a retail store specializing in the selling of antiques. Antiques shops can be located either locally and with the advent of the Internet found online...
s. These businesses provided an array of unique entertainment that combined elements of the past and present. The Opera House had a façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
covered in croquet balls and was a venue for Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
jazz. The Roaring Twenties was a speakeasy
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
themed bar that included a stage show, mock raids, and staged gangster fights. The Natchez Queen was decorated to resemble a riverboat with live ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
music inside. By 1962, property values
Real estate appraisal
Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of valuing real property. The value usually sought is the property's Market Value. Appraisals are needed because compared to, say, corporate stock, real estate transactions occur very infrequently...
had tripled in Gaslight Square.
The district was greatly affected by dramatic change in culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
and music of the late 1950s and 60s when the bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
and hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
generation began questioning traditional majority values in art, literature, and political self expression. the district attracted many poets and writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
s, such as Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis "Jack" Lebris de Kerouac was an American novelist and poet. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic...
and Alan Ginsberg who would stop in St. Louis to experience Gaslight Square.
Many entertainers such as The Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason
Jackie Mason is an American stand-up comedian and movie actor.-Early life:Born Yacov Moshe Maza in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, he grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City....
, Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
and Elaine May
Elaine May
Elaine May is an American film director, screenwriter and actress. She achieved her greatest fame in the 1950s from her improvisational comedy routines in partnership with Mike Nichols...
, Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Jerry Stiller
Jerry Stiller
Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller is an American comedian and actor.He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara...
, Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory
Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory is an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur....
and Jack E. Leonard
Jack E. Leonard
Jack E. Leonard was an American comedian who made frequent appearances on television variety and game shows.-Biography:...
gained exposure at the start of their careers in the clubs of Gaslight Square.
Traditional jazz clubs in Gaslight Square included Peacock Alley
Peacock Alley (jazz club)
Peacock Alley was one of St. Louis's most important jazz clubs in the 1950s. Located in the entertainment district of Gaslight Square, it attracted performances from Miles Davis, John Coltrane, the Chet Baker Quartet and many others...
, Opera House, Bustles and Bows, and Tiger's Den. Modern jazz clubs included The Dark Side, The Other Side, and Jogie's Hip Intertainment. Rosalie Lovett's Left Bank featured barrelhouse bluesman James Crutchfield
James Crutchfield
James Crutchfield was an American St. Louis, Missouri based, barrelhouse blues singer, pianist, and songwriter, whose career spanned seven decades...
.
By the late 1960s Gaslight Square had lost its luster, falling victim to the rapid growth of suburbs and urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
.
Today
By the late 1990s most of the buildings were long gone; those that remained stood open and rapidly deteriorating.For the 20–30 years the district was almost completely vacant. With many empty lots and the remaining buildings dilapidating and empty.
In 2005, many properties within Gaslight Square were bought by the development company RJK Inc. 150 units are planned, mostly condominiums. The new residential properties will sell in the 280k-600k price-range. As of 2008, the vacant lots and condemned buildings are no more. The district is a mixed density residential community with new single family, row homes, small apartments, and condos.
Media
Two documentaries were produced about Gaslight Square within the last several years. Gaslight Square The Forgotten Landmark (Bruce Marren/2002) explores the history by the people who developed the area. Includes interviews with the Smothers BrothersSmothers Brothers
The Smothers Brothers are Thomas and Richard , American singers, musicians, comedians and folk heroes. The brothers' trademark act was performing folk songs , which usually led to arguments between the siblings...
, Jay Landesman
Jay Landesman
Irving Ned Landesman was an American publisher, nightclub proprietor and writer long resident in London.-With the Beats:...
, Bob Kuban
Bob Kuban
Bob Kuban is an American musician and bandleader. Best known for his 1966 #12 pop hit, "The Cheater," Kuban is honored in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's permanent exhibit on one-hit wonders....
, and many others.
Gaslight Square The Legend Lives On (Bruce Marren/2005) looks at the influence it had on the city, uncovers relics, and what has happened to it today. Includes interviews with Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller
Phyllis Diller is an American actress and comedian. She created a stage persona of a wild-haired, eccentrically dressed housewife who makes jokes about a husband named "Fang" while pretending to smoke from a long cigarette holder...
, Billy Peek
Billy Peek
Billy Peek is an American blues guitarist. He played as lead guitarist for Rod Stewart for five years, and toured with rock legend Chuck Berry.-Biography:...
, Jonnie King, and many others.
External links
- Location: 38.645385°N 90.248622°W